Black Frost
by SamaelSammy
Summary: Out on a hunt, Sam finds himself facing brutal introspection and the realization that humans are more fragile then he had truly considered. Was it actually Lucifer's fault that he was broken? (Sabriel)


The first thing he remembers is the cold.

Thick and cloying, no matter which way he moved, it was there. Relentless.

At first it hurt; the creeping frost dragging a slow path along pale skin, turning it a sickly gray and then a dark purplish-blue as it consumed the remaining warmth in his body. He wasn't sure if shock had settled in at that time, or just the knowledge that he was already passing the threshold of no return and that his mind was settling on finality.

But after a while, the pain simply faded away like a bad memory.

The cold stopped bothering him after that... though the path of frost that grew as it consumed him left patterns along his arms and legs that he couldn't help but marvel at, despite knowing that everything before it had frozen over and ceased functioning.

Of all the times that Sam had died or come close to, this was the only time he could remember it being peaceful.

He couldn't remember how he had gotten here though.

Reaching down to press gently at the growing glossy pattern of brittle ice as it accumulated on unnaturally-blue skin, he could neither feel the pressure nor the soft crunch he knew should accompany the movement.

But still, he didn't panic.

Laying in a large mound of snow -without a shirt, he finally noted after a while-, in the semi-darkness of twilight, he could see the shapes of tall trees in his peripheral. Winter; he could just recall they were verging on the edge of December, the beginnings of January.

Michigan, forest, his mind supplied a few minutes later.

A hunt, though the details escaped him.

But it was always a hunt, wasn't it?

One way or another, hunts would always be the death of him. If he could have mustered the ability to think further then simple deductions at the moment, he would have found some amusement for simply dying of frostbite and hypothermia.

But the snow was beautiful.

Large, gentle flakes fell from the clouds above in slow-swirling patterns of various blues and grays, soaking up the color of the sky as it faded into black. He could just make out the hint of stars in the growing darkness; sparkling mindlessly as the weather drifted.

The next thing he noticed after a while was the silence.

Too dark for birds, but there were no deer... no rabbits. Nothing but the gentle wind and the falling flakes of snow. '_Dean would hate this,_' he thought absently. There was always something behind the silence, something waiting. Sam knew the feeling too; a typical hunter's reaction honed by years of knowing that there almost always _was_ something in these silences, and never anything good.

But he just couldn't bring himself to care. Testing his legs, he found he had lost control of them, but was not surprised. Frostbite had taken hold of them; easily visible though holes ripped in his knees where he had apparently fallen sometimes throughout this venture.

He had been bleeding, but that had stopped, congealed. The remains in the snow had long-since been covered over by now.

'Y_ou're dying, idiot. Get a grip._'

He mustered up enough energy to huff to himself, the puff of warm air rising through the fat flakes of snow that fell towards him. His rational mind sounded a lot like Dean.

He had long-since stopped questioning why.

oOoOoOoOoOo

When he awoke later, the twilight had become a deep, inky blackness and most of the clouds had dispersed. He could see the pure skylight now, void of the normal artificial light of towns or cities that he normally stayed in. Thousands of blinking dots in a massive cluster, all peering down at him as if in sympathy for his current state.

Absently, the realization that he'd fallen asleep finally stole over him.

Why wasn't he dead yet?

By all accounts, falling asleep should have been the end of his rambling musings. But here he lay still...

'_Assess the situation._'

Right... thinking. He had to think... had to figure out how he had gotten here, what had happened.

The skin of his chest was a soft shade of blue-gray, distracting. A thin pattern of ice and snow left an intricate pattern that dipped below the waistband of his jeans, and slithered its way along his torso, passing the point where his eyes could track it upwards. Absently, he wondered if it continued on his face.

'_That's not natural Sammy, and you know it._'

"I know." He huffed softly into the silence, his voice weak and cracking near the end.

He was met with no response, but he wasn't so far gone as to expect one. An attempt to move his arms ended in the same result as his legs; the gentle numb painlessness and the answering response of _nothing._ He couldn't even turn his head anymore.

If he had been anyone else he may have felt claustrophobic then, but he was so used to things like this that the thought barely passed his conscious mind before it dissolved.

Why couldn't he remember how he had gotten here? Why couldn't he remember where Dean was, or Castiel? Even Gabriel, whom they had been working with since his return to life after he failed to seal Hell?

'S_low down. One thing at a time._'

Right. Right...

Wincing -a movement he found himself still capable of, though done through sheer reflex since there was nothing to even cause it in the first place-, Sam rolled his eyes to try and scan his peripheral. Not even being able to move his head gave him limited options right now, but it was something still.

Whatever force had landed him in this situation had decided to throw him a bone.

To his right, he could just make out the gentle drift of what looked like... silk? It was too far out of his field of vision to get a decent look, but by the motions and the curl of it in the breeze, it wasn't snow at all. Plus, it had stopped snowing by the time he'd woken.

The cloth didn't make any sound; drifting lazily, softly, as if made of air itself. It was white, but so pure in color that Sam knew it wasn't made by any human.

It was familiar.

'_Come on Sammy, I thought you were the smart one._'

This one sounded suspiciously like Gabriel, and Sam would have made a face at it if he could. The numbness had stolen over most of his face by now... but still he was alive somehow. Whatever was happening to him was definitely supernatural, and he knew that if he got out of this he would never hear the end of it.

But right now that looked to be a big 'if'.

Despite all of these new revelations though, he still felt unnervingly calm... relaxed. That 'finality' or shock, or whatever that had hit him early on still clung stubbornly to his conscious mind. It was comfortable... too comfortable and too fake, he knew.

He couldn't get rid of it. 'I_'m not going to die._' He thought, frowning internally. If he were going to be killed by this thing, he would have died already. Wouldn't he? Whatever this was, it was waiting for something, but whether or not that something was from him or from the others who he knew would look for him, he wasn't sure.

He released a shallow breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, watching the misty warm puff as it rose into the sky and dispersed. Dean would be beyond pissed if he died... again. His brother had watched him die... sewed up injuries, cleaned the blood off of gashes, cauterized bleeding wounds in emergencies, and rushed him to the hospital when that was the only option left.

He had been through so much for Sam already... he wasn't sure how well his brother would cope. And if his brother couldn't cope, then neither would Castiel. He and the angel had gotten closer, in the nights of drinking and dwelling on mutual failures. Some nights Dean just needed to get away from everything, and Castiel would sometimes choose to remain behind to talk with Sam.

He wondered if it was from some sort of lingering guilt. Guilt over breaking his wall, guilt over leaving to help Metatron... guilt over believing him to be the abomination his brothers had claimed Sam to be for the longest time.

He didn't know, but those somewhat-silent nights had been eye-opening, and gradually they had bypassed their awkward first-stages of friendship. Castiel was someone close now.

Gabriel... was Gabriel.

Annoying, tacky, too-loud, and too-bright in a world of grays and blacks. His return had been as flamboyant as any of his previous entries; stealing Sam and Dean -with a very confused Crowley-, off to their bunker and making sure Sam didn't slip into a permanent coma.

The hours spent dealing with snappy sarcasm and startled but grudging approval as they told the Archangel what had happened, was something Sam missed right now. He released a muted huff upon realizing that he missed Gabriel's simple bluntness.

Or just Gabriel.

oOoOoOoOoOo

He wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep again, but the next time Sam woke, the sky was still a pitch black. The stars shown down upon him with the same mocking twinkle as before.

He wished his body ached. He wished it twitched, hurt, anything, because the deep _nothingness_ was starting to grow unnerving. Why hadn't Dean or the others found him yet?

'_Why haven't you called for help, __Sam__?_'

This one was Castiel's voice. '_I would, if I could open my mouth anymore,_' he retorted quietly to himself. His mouth had frozen shut sometime during his sleep; his jaw refusing to work entirely. He couldn't even feel his tongue.

A sudden, irrational annoyance stole over him. Castiel may not have had his angelic grace anymore, but Gabriel had retained enough of his when he came back to count as at least a 'standard angel'. Why hadn't he found Sam yet? Why hadn't Dean pressed Gabriel with his usual over-the-top anger when it came to Sam's well-being?

He had always been so annoyed when Dean hounded him about injuries that bypassed their 'deal with then ignore' methodology, pressing into his business and babying him like he couldn't handle himself. He was sick of it then but now that he lay here, unable to move like an invalid and waiting for his inevitable death by a creature he didn't even remember... the lack of it pissed him off.

Gabriel had constantly hounded him since he came back and pulled them from the church... the Archangel giving him little space and always badgering him about how stupid he was to nearly sacrifice himself _yet again._

Where was that now?

Where was that smug asshole and his badgering, his know-it-all attitude and the sarcastic quip about Sam being stupid enough to get caught unaware? He was stuck here in the snow, dying, and not a sign of anyone anywhere.

_'Gabriel, where the hell are you?_' He fumed quietly, internally. The man was still an angel, so Sam could only assume he could still hear him even if he couldn't respond.

The sight of something shifting quickly in his peripheral distracted him from his quiet rage for a moment; eyes swiveling sluggishly towards the direction where he had first spotted the unusual cloth.

It was closer now, and there was much more of it then before.

At this distance he could make out impossibly-intricate detailing in what he now was sure had to be some sort of ethereal silk; the material dancing and shifting in a way that no material ever could, and if he had any sort of control over his body, he might have felt his breath hitch.

It was a marvel to see... but whatever the material belonged to still eluded him, and his memory was proving useless still.

Unable to deduce any more, he turned his mind back to trying to contact Gabriel. He wished he had his phone, and the use of his arms. Signal would be nice. Dean was much more reliable then Gabriel, probably. But he wasn't here. His own damn brother...

'_You never really did care about what happened to us, did you?_' He seethed quietly. '_Killing Dean over and over just to prove a petty little point, throwing us in your stupid game show just to avoid the truth about your family. Then trying to hide away and make excuses when the pagans were slaughtered._'

He knew deep down that he was just being unfair about the last one; Gabriel had sacrificed his life for them in the end. He had died standing up to his brother, and for them, the underdogs. But Sam couldn't think of that now; his rage only growing as his internal rant was met with nothing but cold silence.

'_Are you ever going to take anything seriously, or are you just going to laugh and make sarcastic comments for the rest of your existence? You're probably laughing right now, making snide remarks about how I'm stuck-_' He cut himself off as an angry breath shot out of his nose.

'Y_ou know what? Screw you. I'm so tired of being the disappointment, the abomination, the screw-up to everyone. Dean's speech in the church... it doesn't even feel like it was real. Maybe I hallucinated the whole thing,_' his thoughts hissed quietly.

The snow around him drifted as the wind picked up a little, but the fact that Sam could only hear and not feel it only spurred a brief spike in his anger.

'_You told me I should 'accept my fate' back then. You must feel accomplished now._'

oOoOoOoOoOo

Hours passed as he released a litany of curses and hatred at the unyielding expanse of snow. Curses towards Gabriel, Dean, and even Castiel.

But eventually, it began to taper off into quiet exhaustion. The dark sky had clouded over again, and large fat flakes of snow drifted down from above. The starlight that had peered down at him, was now covered with blotchy gray clouds of varying shades.

Absently, he wondered how long it would take before the snow concealed his frozen body. He had long-since stopped asking why he was still alive, or trying to figure out how he had managed to get here.

The thought of what the creature could even be, had dissipated.

If Dean knew... if Castiel, or Gabriel knew.

Was it always so easy to dismiss things? As he laid there, watching snowflakes collect on his abdomen and hide the delicate patterning of ice, his thoughts drifted back to when he had been more relentless.

That relentlessness had been a lot more prominent where his brother had been concerned.

'_… I remember, you know, the first time he 'died'._' He thought quietly. He hadn't tried speaking to Gabriel for a while after his rage and the resounding lack of response... but he found he just couldn't stop trying.

The silence was maddening, but it was far worse when there was _nothing._

'_I was confused, then upset, and then angry..._'

A soft puff of semi-cool air escaped his nose. It was barely visible in the falling snow and wind, but he knew that was because his body temperature had ceased being 'normal' a long time ago. The idea that he was basically watching his steady progression into becoming a frozen corpse was brief and horrifying, and quickly removed itself form conscious thought.

'_Even after five, ten, a dozen times, I never got used to it. Watching him die over and over again, it tore out a little piece of me every time. I know you know that I kept trying to find ways to save him, to make sure he didn't die. I'm..._' A pause, as his eyes snagged on the lovely cloth for a moment.

'_To be honest, I don't know what was going through your mind at the time. Back then, I didn't care about what you were trying to tell me... and I can't honestly say now that I fully understand._'

The cloth was closer then before; the gentle slide of the unearthly material ghosting over his cheek. He couldn't feel it, but he could see that there were layers of it now. It was a very large piece of cloth; starting somewhere over his head and drifting down just past his hips.

Still no hint on what it belonged to.

'_I was angry, and I think I had a right to be. Even when I thought we escaped after confronting you the first time, he only died again. But this time, you let me suffer for months._' If he could feel or use his throat, he was sure he would have had to swallow heavily.

If he could have teared up, he might have. But as it was, he could only lay there. The anger he had started this one-sided conversation with had long-since died out, but it had shown him that the calm he felt in the beginning wasn't a result of anything supernatural.

'_I was willing to do anything to get him back, but you knew that deep down. I think... I think I shocked both of us when I crumbled like that. Begging you, I mean. I'd have done anything to get Dean back... but it's not Dean that's dying right now, it's me..._'

'_Don't be selfish!_' Ruby. This one was Ruby.

But Sam couldn't find the energy to become angry again. Even though it was her voice and definitely something she would say, the thought was still his. He couldn't muster the energy to argue against it.

'_Just... please Gabriel... please don't leave me here..._'

oOoOoOoOoOo

The next time he woke, Sam felt the only shift in his condition for hours; he was much, much colder. It was the only thing he could feel, in any sort of physical manner... though it ran deeper then that.

It reminded him a little of the time he had spent playing host to Lucifer. Everything had been ice and darkness then too, when the Devil wasn't forcing his consciousness out to watch the things he did or try to convince Sam to stop struggling.

But this feeling was different, in that even though Lucifer gave little actual care for him, he still pretended to. The Archangel had held back in his body, suppressing him just enough to keep Sam from struggling. This cold was merciless, hateful, and pressed down on him like a tangible weight; threatening, no _trying_ to crush him with such finality that he felt he was drowning.

He felt like an abomination all over again... an unwanted being in a world that rejected his very existence.

And its final solution was his permanent demise.

'_Dean is still looking for you... you are still his brother,_' the voice of Castiel argued.

But Sam knew that was just his own mind trying feebly to create hope, worth. Another weak huff of transparent steam escaped his nose, less visible then the one he had seen before. He was surprised a moment, to see strange black tendrils of _something_ joining the wispy white ghost-cloth.

The cloth itself had extended far past his feet; the layers obscuring his view of his own body underneath lumpy mounds of snow. He could barely see his chest now in the combination of the two. Whatever the black material was, Sam had lost too much of himself to be able to make any logical guesses.

He wondered if his mind was finally beginning to shut down.

'_Whatever this thing is Gabriel, it's strong. Don't let Dean or Castiel walk into it... just stop. Stop looking for me._'

The cloth took on a silvery ripple as it shifted in the wind, and he stared at it for a few minutes. His mind had slipped away from him. He was so tired...

'_I haven't done anything right, ever._' He thought bitterly. '_I don't even know if you're actually listening to me. You were right, about my obsessive need for Dean. If I had... if I had listened to you, gotten what you were trying to show me, I wouldn't have been sucked into ruby's game._

_I wouldn't have raised Lucifer, and all of those people that died because of him... they'd still be alive. Christ, the entire town he destroyed just to raise Death..._' He had to stop a moment, trying to regain control of his flimsy breathing when it became too hard for him.

'_Cas wouldn't have had to come back, he wouldn't have died. I wouldn't have beaten Dean __to within an inch of his life__, Jo and Ellen would still be here... I make a mess of anything I try to fix. I only broke Cas when he tried to help me with my hallucinations- I couldn't even seal Hell when I had the chance._

_God, Gabriel... I should have been dead a long time ago, and now that I'm dying, I'm... scared. I'm selfish for it, I don't want to leave Dean or Cas, or..._' His unspoken 'you' still rang loud and clear in the silence.

'_I'm sorry._' Even in his own mind, the sound of his apology was weak, cracked. His perception of things was sliding away into uncomfortable numbness, the same _nothing_ that consumed everything he had already, but didn't seem satisfied with just that.

If he had been more aware of things, he would have heard the soft, tinkling laughter at the morbid path his thoughts had taken.

But all he could think of now was how sorry he was... and how much he missed Gabriel's obnoxious talking habits.

oOoOoOoOoOo

He was sure this would be the last time he woke up.

The sluggish lethargy that clung to his consciousness actually felt natural this time. It was as if the frostbite, ice, and temperature were finally wreaking havoc on him and dragging him away, despite the fact that his body was already likely nothing but a frozen corpse.

Above him, he could see the first few rays of sunlight.

That a whole night had passed in what he knew was likely single-digit or sub-temperatures with no shirt and ripped jeans on, yet he was still just barely functioning...

He wasn't putting anything on lasting any longer then the morning, at best.

'_At least it doesn't hurt._' He thought, more to himself then Gabriel. After so much time being torn between what he realizes were various stages of grief, he was sure this was the stage of Acceptance. The rage felt like a distant memory, and the depression had soothed over with the growing cold as it took over.

Vaguely, he wondered if asking Gabriel to take care of Dean and Cas was too much. After a moment of deliberation, he decided that Gabriel would likely stick around regardless; if they hadn't scared him away already they probably would never be able to.

Dean wouldn't take his death well, but Sam knew his brother would have Castiel to help him. Cas, who had stuck with Dean through so much already... who had died for him more then once, and still felt roiling guilt when he couldn't offer Dean whatever his brother wanted.

Sam knew the former angel would take care of his brother, and likely far better then Sam himself ever could.

But who would Gabriel have?

He had to admit now that he knew he wasn't coming out of this alive, that he really would miss the Archangel. He wasn't sure when his hatred had melted into something along the lines of friendship... probably around when Gabriel had sacrificed himself for him, his brother, and humanity.

But he could say with some small amount of life-clarity, that it hadn't been just 'friendly' for at least a few months. Gabriel's act of returning them to the bunker, finding Cas, bringing him to them, and then spending all of his time nursing Sam back to health was something he appreciated on a deeper level.

It wasn't love, not really.

But he couldn't shake the feeling of loss as he lay there in the snow and wondered if maybe, eventually, he could have loved him if given more time.

Above him, the wispy black strands flickered back and forth. Sam was too far gone now to notice the beautiful face that the strands stemmed from; the woman's long black hair riding the wind like an unspoken lover. The white cloth all returned to the lithe body perched over him as icy blue eyes took in his final appearance.

Research and hunter experience would have told him what the creature was.

His memory would have reminded him how he had fallen into her trap... or if he had any feeling left in his body, where his broken ankle rested in the hidden bear trap in the snow.

As it was, Sam was finally losing his eyesight; the last of his physical consciousness slipping away. Yuki-Onna were not merciful spirits. They did not release a victim once caught in their grasp.

But neither do Archangel-Tricksters.

As Sam drifted into a sleep he knew he wasn't going to wake from, he could vaguely feel the temperature around him rising. His fading eyesight ensured that the last thing he saw was a brilliant golden light... a familiarity that meant comfort, and if he could have smiled before passing out, he would have.

oOoOoOoOoOo

The next time he opened his eyes it was to the white bunker bed, a familiar body beside his, luminous golden eyes staring back at him, and a brilliant smile of relief that rivaled sunlight.

"Hey Kiddo..."


End file.
